Party vote foes wage uphill fight

Posted: Friday, August 08, 2008

It would take a miracle, or at least a major movement in the Georgia General Assembly, to jettison party politics from most county elections - but that hasn't stopped local groups from thinking about the possibility.

With primary season behind them, Democrats in Oconee County and Republican Madison County commissioners have inquired separately about sweeping the big D's and R's off ballots for county offices.

Though it's been challenged unsuccessfully a number of times in recent years, state law right now doesn't allow nonpartisan elections for sheriff, county commissioners or other county offices like tax commissioner.

Still, the issue comes up fairly regularly after primaries, when members of a minority party may be forced to choose between voting in their party's nominating contests and having a say in their local governments.

Supporters of nonpartisan local elections - which are possible under state law for judges, school board members, city council members and commissioners in consolidated city-county governments - say that the party system has no place in local issues.

Nonpartisan candidates all would be elected in the November general election, and all registered voters would get to vote for them.

"I feel like on the level we're talking about that there are so many good candidates that you see that you want to vote for," said Madison County Commissioner Stanley Thomas. "To be restricted not to vote for them in the primary just seems wrong."

The partisan system pushes minority party members to run as members of the majority party because they know they can't get elected otherwise, Thomas said.

This week, Madison commissioners, prodded by Thomas, directed the county attorney to study options for stepping away from partisan elections.

Board of education races in Madison County already are nonpartisan, but in heavily Republican Oconee County, all races except Superior Court judge are partisan. Elections for all but one Oconee County office this year were decided in the July GOP primary or the runoff that followed.

Recently, Oconee Democrats inquired about the possibility of polling county residents on the issue in November. They found out, however, that they'd have to wait until next year's primary for any kind of straw poll.

County party members planned to keep talking about the issue at a meeting this week, though, said Democratic elections board member Bill Yarbrough.

Oconee County Sheriff Scott Berry, like the rest of the members of the Georgia Sheriff's Association, for years has been speaking out in favor of nonpartisan sheriff elections.

"Being a sheriff isn't a function of being a Democrat or a Republican," Berry said. "It's being the chief law enforcement officer in the county."

Most recently, the state Senate in 2005 passed a bill that would have allowed nonpartisan sheriff races, but the measure didn't make it to a vote in the House.

State Rep. Alan Powell, D-Hartwell, regularly introduces legislation to change state law and allow nonpartisan county elections, but his bills never go anywhere, he said.

Residents and local officials in Powell's Northeast Georgia district raise the issue quite often because they've seen party politics play havoc in local decisions, he said. Franklin County commissioners recently even passed a resolution supporting nonpartisan contests, he said.

But any move to change the system at the state level would have a tough time, said state Sen. Ralph Hudgens, R-Hull. Hudgens said he supports partisan elections at the local level because people know what they're getting.

"If you're going to run, you need to tell people what you believe," he said. "And your first statement is when you say, 'I'm a Democrat,' or, 'I'm a Republican.' "

Oconee County GOP Chairman James Griffith said he wasn't surprised that local Democrats would seek to change the system, characterizing it as a move to gain a foothold in county offices.

Griffith acknowledged that the partisan system may push Oconee Democrats, for example, to run as Republicans, but he said that's usually not a factor.

"Most of the time, they don't get elected," he said. "Most of the time, people figure out they're not who they think they are."